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kakapo writes "A couple of years ago, we dumped our cable TV, and don't have much luck getting old-fashioned broadcast where we live. That's fine — we can download or netflix almost anything we want to see, and it is great not to pay the Comcast tax every month. Problem is, now I want to watch the election live, complete with talking heads, pundits, glitzy graphics and all the rest, rather than reading about it on a website. So, is there any way to download network TV / CNN / MSNBC in real time — I don't mind paying. And yes, we could visit friends, but ideally our kids would watch the first part and then go to bed — and a sitter would be expensive if we have to wait until late for the result."

Do you really think the corporations who really run this country would allow an independent person be in charge of trillions of dollars? Not very likely.

On the big issues there isn't much difference between the two. They both supported the bailout. Both candidates top contributors are investment banks like Goldman Sachs. They both support more war, although they bicker over who can best protect you from Al-Qaeda! They both support redistribution of wealth, one to people who ar

They both supported the bailout because the bailout had to happen. It should have had teeth the way the UK one did(everyone at the top of every bank the UK government socialized got fired) and it probably should have had a better plan than "we'll buy lot of your stock, but we're the government so we can't own a private corporation and so we despite owning the vast majority of your company we won't have voting rights", but the banks themselves needed to be bailed out even if the individuals didn't.

They don't both support the war(at least not identically, yes both support afghanistan, but Obama wants out of Iraq).

Redistribution of wealth depends an awful lot on how they do it. McCain will continue the usual republican model where they "create wealth" so that rich people can be richer making everyone else comparatively poorer. I'm not entirely sure what Obama will do in the end, a hand out to everyone doesn't work, but providing people with health care, protections at work, free education, and general assistance to ensure that rather than working hard to make someone else rich some of their hard work is rewarded by making them a little bit wealthier is a redistribution of wealth I can get behind.

The current system of wealth distribution is flawed. The folks who do the work get barely enough to get by, the folks who run the companies(even if they didn't build them and don't contribute to them) get paid bucketloads, and the scum sucking stock trading weasels make even more playing the market game at the expense of everyone else(including the companies that the stock market is supposed to provide investment captal for).

I realize that some people would consider these ideas "extreme", but on the other hand, what we have been seeing has been rather extreme. Maybe it is time for extreme ideas.

Here is what I would do:

(1) Pass law (and, I hope, amend the Constitution), to the effect that no campaign contributions, gifts, or other compensation shall be given to current or campaigning politicians, other than from individual citizens who are eligible to vote. No entity that does not actually vote (i.e., anybody but individua

Have my head hacked off by some religious lunatic versus an infinitesimal chance[...]

You seem to be under the impression that having your head hacked off is guaranteed, in reality (you should visit some time) it's much less likely than someone in government looking at your private information.

(yes, yes, I know, you have nothing to hide... send me your passwords then, so I can watch your email)

I was really excited to vote in this election (as I missed bing born early enough for the the last one by a few weeks), but both the canidates seem like incompetent panderers. I cast my vote hoping that my canidate will return to how he was before the primaries, and not pander to his party so much.

I'd be in your boat if Hillary had won and Palin weren't on the ticket. I can't stand either of them. It's amazing how similar they are, while holding diametrically opposed sociopolitical beliefs. I do agree with you that, in the event McCain wins, he goes back the man he was in 2000 and kicks some serious congressional butt and fixes the deficit and debt before he starts handing money back.

Hi, I find your link to CNN to be humorously incorrect but fun nonetheless. The true links to live election coverage are MS-NBC [imageshack.us], Fox News [imageshack.us] and CNN [imageshack.us]. Be sure to wait until election day to tune in!

Have you tried plugging a TV into the cable feed? A lot of times, the cable company won't bother implementing a cancellation, figuring that reclaiming the box is good enough and saving the cost of a truck roll. It's possible that you'll still have analog basic cable on that "disconnected" cable line. Alternately, you could sign up for one month of limited Analog Cable for $15.

I lived in an apartment for almost a year with no TV, mostly because I didn't think it was worth it to spend the money on the TV when I couldn't afford a monthly cable bill. About two weeks before I was going to move out, I finally broke down and bought a TV. Plugged it in to the cable line just for kicks, and voila, cable TV. I could have been watching free cable TV the entire time I was there.

Of course, when I moved into the new place, I plugged the TV to the cable line there and...nothing. That reall

My last apartment, I smoked up the cable guy when he hooked up my internet. Guess he "forgot" to put the filter in the line after that. In my current home, I never saw the cable guy when I got internet.

OT, but I heard a story on the radio about Cox buying up spectrum, perhaps to compete with cell phone companies. I got a good laugh when the anchor mentioned "the privately held Cox".

No no no, when you let someone smoke your weed, you're smoking them out. "Smoking up" just means you gave them a smoke cured ham. But don't worry, lots of people get confused on those two (especially with the memory loss that comes from all that ham).

Unencrypted, yes. Delivered, no. There is nothing that says they have to give you the broadcast channels at all, just that if they do then they must be unencrypted. With the proper filter installed you won't receive any TV channels.

Yes. You may immediately think "Google" and be able to type in the appropriate search, but not everyone is so astute. That's why we have/., and putting it on the front page does better to ensure that everyone who might think to ask will see it.
There's also something to be said for the potential for variety of information you'll get here versus Google. Maybe not so much for the quality...

No it isn'tLet me fill you in.If McCain wins odds are that we will have a Democratic majority on congress.The end result is that it should keep things somewhat in the center. Or very little will get done that doesn't have a universal support.If Obama wins we will have a Democratic congress. Truth is that I would bet that it will also go more towards the center but if they start really messing up then in two years congress will shift back towards the Republicans and we will again have balance.If Obama or McCain really mess up we fire them in four years and get a new president.In the end it will not be the end of the world.Geez I don't like Obama's energy policy since it is not as pro nuclear as I would like. I am not all that fond of McCain's tax plan. Or Obama's "Guess what folks. You can not give a tax cut to someone that already pays zero or gets more back than they pay in. That is called charity."Truth is I doubt it matter much one way or the other. I don't think their is a great man running for president this year but I also don't think their is a monster running.Chill out and relax.

This analysis reminds me of discussions taking place around 2000, when the prevailing wisdom was that it would not make one bit of difference who got elected. We were wrong then, and you are wrong now.

I'd agree with most of what you say were it not for Sarah Palin. That woman puts the fear of God in me, and I'm an atheist! Can you imagine someone in the President's seat who doesn't even know what the Bush Doctrine is without having to phone a friend? We had a retard in the oval office for 8 years and it has been an unmitigated disaster. Lord help us if the American voters once again show disdain for educated people as 'elitists.'

Not really.The president can only do what Congress allows. That is what I find so funny about people freaking out over the president.There are checks and balances in the system one person can not mess it up that bad in just four years.

Yes I have. And yes most Americans have faith in checks and balances.The invasion of Iraq passed with huge support from both Democrats and Republicans.Also with a lot of support of other countries at the time.The Economy? Not just Bush's fault. Take a look at all the other countries that have had the same thing happen to them at this time. We have been going from bubble to bubble since Clinton. No one was willing to deflate the bubble but bubbles don't last for ever.

If you think one person has that much power for good or evil you are just clueless.Bush is just easy to blame since he is the president. The number of people involved is huge and isn't even limited to a single country.

You can reprocess the spent fuel just like France, the UK, and Japan do. It vastly decreases the amount you need to store and for how long.Also yes Virgina I have a nuke plant in my home town. Love that carbon free power.

Sign up for cable today, and cancel after the election. Most cable companies in the US don't have contracts, and you can cancel service at any time. You might end up paying for a month of service and an installation fee, but it could be cheaper than a baby sitter.

I totally agree and plan on finding out what Americans do on Election Day via shortwave radio from BBC or Radio Sierra-Leon or some other non partisan source on my antique Halicrafters. I am by the way IN the US and a US citizen. Ever consider some other country could run a propaganda station? they might call it..oh I don't know... " Voice of America"...or something....

Can you even pick up the VOA in the US? I'm in college in southwest Florida and have never been able to; ditto from my house on the east coast. Granted, I don't have the best radio; the only BBC feed I could pick up was the Caribbean one that they shut down this year (West Africa comes in but is faint).

Good tip, and the networks and cable stations were part of the problem in 2000. Paying for their "service" would be doing America a disservice.

Michael Moore let CNN, and Fox TV have it in Fahrenheit 9/11. He suggested that it was the erroneous claim from Fox that Bush had beat Gore, that led to other stations in changing their opinion, which turned public opinion in favour of Bush Jr.

He suggested that it was the erroneous claim from Fox that Bush had beat Gore,

Pssst. Here's a free clue: Bush did beat Gore. Even after all of Gore's judicial attempts at getting pro-Bush absentee ballots thrown out. Yeah, all anyone seems to remember is the SCOTUS decision overturning the Fla. Supremes for judicial activisism, but forget that it was Gore who was behind all the other court cases that lost.

But you are right in the long run, listening to the mainstream coverage will not help anything. The

I second that. I work for an IPTV operator, and slingboxes are quite amazing really. You can get a client plugin for almost anything, and all you need to do is find a video source to hook it up to with a decent network connection.

Of course, as with all high tech solutions, test before you go into production, as it were...

While CNN [cnn.com], MSNBC [msnbc.com], and Faux News [foxnews.com], are all likely to have live streaming feeds of election results, it might be more worthwhile to head to your local sports bar. They'll very likely have the election results on, and they have a reasonable supply of alcohol as well, which will come in handy no matter who wins (if your candidate of choice wins, you celebrate; if the other guy wins, you drown away your sorrows),...;-)

The C-SPAN site uses a flakey AJAX framework to try to sniff your stream reader. Unfortunately it's broken for some browsers. That seems to include firefox - including the version on my Ubuntu Feisty install which I keep up-to-the-minute with the upgrade tool.

So I've reverse-engineered it enough to find URLs for the underlying streams.

Here are direct links to the realplayer streams for C-SPAN [rbn.com], C-SPAN2 [rbn.com], and C-SPAN3 [rbn.com].

= = =

PS: I haven't been able to figure out how to construct similar links for archived sho

I think I'm going to take a sleeping pill right after work and try to sleep through the whole thing. There's no point in watching it "unfold" - the next day my guy will either be President Elect or not, and my watching breathless talking heads constantly reanalyzing the same data isn't going to change it one way or another.

If you were to go to McDonalds and buy a Big Mac would you be paying an Big Mac tax?

If I went to McDonald's and the only way to get a Big Mac was with Fries, a Coke, and a Sundae (with wonderful "extra" options like salad, milk, and coffee available only if I purchase a "base" value meal), you sure as hell can bet I'd see it as a "tax".

Of course, the solution is to not go to McDonald's. Right up until I realize that McDonald's has been granted a monopoly in my area. Going to Burger King requires that I MOVE 30 miles away because they can only serve local residents. Worse yet, nice restaurants have all been driven out of business by a government-sponsored monopoly. So my options are currently go to McDonald's and pay the McTax, or don't go out to eat.

C-SPAN has a live feed, URL is rtsp://rx-wes-sea74.rbn.com/farm/pull/tx-rbn-sea001:2459/farm/cspan/g2cspan/live/cspan1-g2.rm for real media. I'm sure Hulu and justin.tv will have streams running as well.

in answer to your question: who cares? why do you feel the need to tell everyone you don't own a tv? that's the real subtext of your question

and if you think that's a smarmy answer, well then i have a real answer for you: GO BUY A TV. GET CABLE OR SATELLITE. END OF STORY. your brain will not melt, you will not be contributing to the downfall of western civilization. really. or, go ahead and listen to the various unnecessary technical gymanstics you must perform offered in this thead. instead of simply going and getting yourself a simple, harmless television

this is some sort of genuine subculture. and if not owning a television turns one into a vainglorious buffoon, then please, everyone should own a television, for the sake of a healthy sense of humility. sheesh

Some channel that, perhaps with public funding, broadcast news programs over the airwaves, that would cover that kind of thing?

For myself - I had to drop Dish network, but went ahead and got two TR-40/DTVpal Digital-->Analog tuners before I did, and it turns out my PBS affiliate has three HDTV channels, with another two from another affiliate I get decent reception on, none of them have the same programming, so I actually have five pretty decent channels for free.

He said reception was bad in his area. If you have poor but watchable analog reception, you'll have unwatchably choppy digital reception. Before digital, I got PBS from 2 states. Now, I'm lucky if I can get one station to come in without breaking up long enough to watch the News Hour.

First off, I am betting that the whole thing will be embroiled in troubles with all electronic voting machines and close recounts. I doubt that we will hear an official winner in several states until days or maybe weeks later. Second, suggest getting one of the digital converter boxes and an amplified antenna. Will serve you well for a long time into the future and provide a very good signal even when you normally get static on the old analog over the air. I work for a broadcast group and we have tested di

Why bother watching live, or watching at all? Is it really going to make a difference to your life that you know who the president elect is when your head hits the pillow vs when you wake up in the morning? Geesh! The only thing more boring than watching election coverage is watching the endless speeches, debates, talk shows, etc. leading up to the election. Your election coverage has been going on for months on end already. Obama this, and Palin that, and blah, blah, blah, voting machines, blah, blah.

I am wondering the same thing about tonight's World Series game on Fox. Anyone answer that question?

Baseball/Football/Basketball jealously guard their broadcast rights.The only way to stream those things live is off the official website or through a premium membership (aol/msn/real networks/i'm not sure who anymore) after paying for it.

Enough with the Obama rumor nonsense. It isn't so much that nobody believes the stories that he's an adulterous socialist cryptomuslim alqaida mole whose really a citizen of Queen Maud Land. (Though you have to admit that the evidence is, to put it mildly, laughable.) It's just that nobody cares.

Why should they? He's different from the idiot who's now in power and the senile fool who's the alternative. That's all anybody cares about.

Why should they? He's different from the idiot who's now in power and the senile fool who's the alternative. That's all anybody cares about.

Exactly. As a Brit, viewing from overseas, McCain looks pretty much the same as Bush. Old, rich, right-wing guy. So the election looks like: Vote for McCain, because you think Bush did OK. Or vote Obama, and hope that that guy has some intelligence, a more worldly view, and morals. Mind you, I thought in 2004 that the US population couldn't be *that* silly to re-elect Bush. Mind you - fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again.